Albus Dumbledore and the Boy Who Fell
by SixFtWookie
Summary: Harry Potter didn't live, but the boy who did will change everything.


Lord Voldemort was having a very good day. He had made a major breakthrough into his destiny to be immortal. He had received the location of the only thing which could stop him, an infant. He had an indestructible artifact that was going to be a perfect vessel for his final phylactery. It was a day very well suited to soul magics, Samhain, and he would create his final and strongest anchor tonight.

The orb was the size of a large orange, and though one could also use that color to describe the orb, one could also describe a forest as green. It was not opaque at a glance, but the multitude of swirling oranges, yellows and reds inside of it rendered it so. A single 5 pointed star adorned the surface of the orb, perfectly smooth, perfectly round.

One of his Knights had presented him with his prize after a particularly successful raid on one of the competitors of his former employer and current lackey, Burkes. This Knight, Dolohov, was an Unspeakable by day, and had been instructed to keep an eye out on this raid for any of the old and exotic magical items rumored to be in his house. Since Dolohov had never heard of anything like this orb in his extensive studies, he knew his Master would be intrigued, and for being correct he was rewarded with a great many of the lesser magical items they had gained that day.

That had been over a year ago, many months after hearing the prophecy of one who would have the power to defeat him. That a mere baby was bending the fates to such an extent was baffling at first, until Voldemort realized that any being strong enough to defeat him would of course twist the very nature of reality in some way. Voldemort felt that this news reaching him before he had finished the final piece of his great project was serendipity. When he started researching his new orb, he knew this was final piece of the puzzle.

He could find no records of an orb of this description anywhere, nor could his most studious Knights. He could feel a great power held locked within it, but nothing he could do would access that power. In a fit of anger at the mystery the strange ball presented him with, he started cursing it, casting his most destructive and dark curses, hexes and even a few jinxes he remembered from first year. The table the orb had been resting on was reduced to smoking slag, some parts of it dripping down with sizzling pops from the ceiling and walls, small molten blobs dancing to an unheard tune, and in a crater in the floor, lay a perfect and pristine orb. His curiosity reinstated, the Dark Lord tried to discern what gave the orb its indestructible nature, but it yielded just as much information as before.

Determined to test the limits of the orb, he used the only two things his research had said could destroy his anchors. Fiendfire and basilisk venom. On a deserted island in the North Sea, he poured fiendfire on the artifact for as long as his will and magic would allow him. After all these years practicing with that particular spell, he could maintain a full strength flame hot enough to melt steel and stone for over half an hour. The orb's surface temperature would rise ever higher, but no matter how hot, it maintained its perfect form. From the store of basilisk venom he had the foresight to procure from Slytherin's serpent, he first tested a single drop on the top of the orb. When that did nothing except put a hole in yet another research table when the drop rolled off it's surface, he submerged the entire thing in that most destructive and corrosive magical substance known, and levitated it back out the next day. Pulled from the warded container, the orb emerged perfectly round, perfectly dry.

He had started the series of rituals that day to test and prepare the orb for its suitability as a vessel for his soul. Not all objects had the durability to hold the complex web of enchantments needed to house a soul fragment, and not all previously enchanted items would accept the new enchantments. It was obviously strong enough, but would it's impermiability to research charms and diagnostic scrying also prevent it from serving its new purpose? Only trying would tell him, and when he performed the final ritual designed to prepare a new horcrux, he could feel the now familiar tug on his soul, it was ready for the final step.

Four days later, this very morning, he received news. One of his recruiting drives turned up a rat in lions clothes, a mewling, broken man begging for his life before the Dark Lord. One of Dumbledore's pathetic volunteers had been caught in the middle of a raid on Samhain morning, the start of a day of glorious revelry for his Knights. Voldemort entertained the rat for hours before he begged to finally tell the secret hidden within him. After breaking the body, mind and spirit of the rat who wore the form of a wizard, a quick legillimancy probe was enough to switch his loyalties, reinforced with a potion and a few compulsion charms in case the new traitor's former allies should find him. Voldemort knew there was nothing worse than death, but he was well versed in convincing others that there was nothing worse than denying Lord Voldemort what he wants.

The Potter family is hiding in Godric's Hollow. Voldemort was not sure which infant was supposed to grow up to be his equal, until fate delivered the address to the little blighter into his lap. Now that he had that little piece of information, snipping this infant child's threads of fate would be easier than stealing candy from a baby. Now there was an idea. It may be easy to steal candy from children now that he was the most feared Dark Lord in the country, but that shouldn't deprive him of any of the subtle joy the act still brought him after these years.

Apparating into Godric's Hollow, he saw hordes of terrible beasts, children running about making noise, running into each other, assaulting each other in the shadows where the adults don't look. There's a fine place to start. Seeing the youth of nearly a man's height looming over a terrified child brought up memories of a childhood he put behind him long ago. Silently apparating into the shadows further behind the bully, a tripping jinx has the larger boy down long enough to make the smaller one a useful toy.

"Imperio"

Only a thought was needed to turn the tiny form into a berserker, tearing into the still prone form of the bully, tooth and nail. When the pool of blood looked sufficiently deep, his toy was sent off away from the target house to the south, with orders to treat all adults as he had the bully. That should provide a distraction should there be any guards nearby.

Ignoring the increasingly distant screams, he bent over the bleeding torso. Plunging his hand into one if the larger wounds, he grabs onto the slowly beating heart, chanting in a dark language. The thrashing limbs go still. The eyes lose the look of terror of pain, losing all color and white. Only a glassy, black gaze looked up from the body ground. When Voldemort stood, he directed his new inferi to kill any adults he found to the west. Sorting through the bag which wasn't left in the pile of blood, he picked out an assortment of chocolates and moved on to his target.

Coming to a fence gate that none of the panicking children seemed to see, he looked up at the pathetic dwelling his prey was hiding in. A simple muggle style home, looking just like the muggle style homes next to it. This whole abomination of a mixed blood village should have been razed long ago, there must have been some powerful attention redirecting wards around the whole area. No time for more distractions, he analyzed the wards surrounding the Potter home, and besides the fidelius hiding the whole address from those not in on the secret, there were only a few alarm wards. Ignoring them, he pointed his wand at the door, which exploded inward as all glass on the front of the house shattered, spreading shrapnel and debris into the front room. A masculine scream of pain was his reward, followed by shouted words that Voldemort could not make out. Walking through the remains of the doorway, the Dark Lord vaguely recognized the young man bleeding on the floor in front of him. His two favorite words solved the issue of trying to remember what his name might be. In the eyes of Lord Voldemort, the only people who needed to know the names of his enemies were the stonecutters preparing their headstones.

Walking up the stairs, Voldemort could hear the cries and wails of his target above him. He could faintly hear a low, feminine chanting, and the door nearest the top of the stairs glowed golden for a moment. Some sort of trap he mused, the woman might prove more entertaining than her husband, and launched a blasting hex at wall to the side of the door. When he walked in the room, he saw the infant he was there for, and the mother he had been begged to spare. Since Voldemort was a generous master, he was willing to let her live. Maybe letting her know she was going to be a reward to Snape if she gave in to his was a mistake. After giving her the option, she tried attacking him, standard spell chain started, and died very shortly after the second curse left her wand. Now there were just two left, him and the infant with the potential to defeat him. Lord Voldemort pulled the orb from robes with his off hand, held it aloft, pointed his wand at the child, and with a flash of green light he guided another crack along his soul, and felt the broken piece pulled into his newest and final horcrux.

Voldemort was so busy savoring his victory he never would have thought to look up into the sky, and indoors as he was he never had a chance to notice the star above the house grow from a pinprick of light to a fiery orb. The flaming ball from the heavens fell too fast for Voldemort to hear his doom arrive. The small town of Godric's Hollow was too engrossed in Halloween celebrations and Samhain horrors to see the sky fall, and none of them survived to hear the explosion which engulfed them.

-=oOo=-


End file.
